In the last five years, Google has moved from being a relatively obscure internet company to a house-hold name and de-facto search tool on the internet. Google has given us a lot of great new tools, such as Gmail and Google Earth, but did you know that Google can save you money? It’s true. Here are five ways that Google can put more money back in your wallet.

Google Product Search – Google has created a tool called Google Product Search, which used to operate under the name “Froogle,” that allows you to search across thousands of different retailers for the products that you would like to purchase online. Google will look through the databases of each online retailer and get you the best price on the item you want to purchase. Google will even tell you whether or not the store is reputable to buy from based on the ratings of previous customers.

Coupon Codes – If you’re going to buy something online, it always makes sense to check and see if there’s a coupon code you can use to save money on the purchase before going ahead and clicking the ‘Submit Order’ button. Open up your web-browser, head on over to Google, type the name of the retailer you’re buying from, and type in the word “coupon codes” after it. You’ll see listings for dozens of different deal sites which will likely have money saving coupon codes for the retailer you’re shopping at.

Free Applications and Services – Google gives away dozens of different free web-applications which you would likely otherwise have to pay for. Before Google purchased Google Earth from Keyhole, the software was very expensive to purchase. Google made it free to everyone to download and try out. Google also offers a free word processor, spreadsheet application, presentation program and one of the best email accounts available.

Product and Retailer Reviews – Google’s search engine empowers individuals to make much more informed decisions about the products they purchase and the stores they purchase products from. If you head on over to Google, and type in the name of the product you’re looking to buy or the retailer you’re looking to purchase from followed by the word “reviews”, you’ll likely find all sorts of listings for product and retailer reviews. You could get to these sites manually, but Google conglomerates them all for you into a simple listing that you can browse through easily.

Advertising – Not very many of us use Google’s Ad Words program, but for those who do, it can save them a lot of money on advertising. Google has empowered advertisers to set their own prices and very specifically target their campaigns making advertising through Google much more effective than previously created services.

Google’s not going to make you a millionaire anytime soon (unless you were able to buy some of its stock right after the IPO), but it can save you a significant amount of money if you use it properly.